When Russian voters took to the polls on 04 December 2011, to decide the shape of the lower house of the Russian Parliament known as the Duma, in what many regarded as a referendum on current Prime Minister, and expected future President, Vladimir Putin. If Putin and his supporters hoped, however, that the results would be a glowing endorsement of the Russian people’s adoration of not only his leadership, but his United Russia Party were soon dashed with the results illustrating that support appears to have fallen to just under 50% from the 64% of the vote the party received in 2007. The results are, however, not a complete shock to observers as there had been indications that the vote was going to see a significant fall in support for United Russia with a survey conducted by the Levada Center between 28 October – 01 November 2011, revealing that just 51% of Russians supported United Russia. What has been something of a shock is the reaction of some of the Russian people whose defiance in the face of what they have described as dirtiest elections since Putin’s rise to the Kremlin is considerable. Despite the noble intentions it becomes apparent that conversely rather seeing much needed changes to the Russian political and social landscape the unrest may result in an increasingly paranoid and openly authoritarian regime.
There is little doubt that the recent elections were riddled with inconsistencies and plauged by interference. Russia’s only independent monitoring group, Golos, who are funded largely by the US and EU, declared that it had logged around 5,300 complaints alleging violations and also added that their website had been hacked by the authorities. Additionally, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe acknowledged that the election had in general been “well organised” but that there had been several problems with the counting process. Observers from the OSCE added that they believed the contest was slanted in favour of the ruling party and had suffered because several opposition parties had been barred from taking part. There were also accusations that the administration lacked independence, that most of the media was biased and that there where instances were state authorities interfered unduly at various levels of the process.
These types of abuses are nothing new in the post-Soviet country. What is relatively rare, however, is the evident growing swell of outrage which is gradually beginning to sweep across the region and has seen relatively large scale protests in Moscow, St Petersburg and throughout the region. Additionally, there has been a significant outcry on social media sites such as Twitter and the adoption by those calling at one end of the spectrum for new elections and at the other for a “snowy revolution” (inspired by those seen in post Soviet countries such as the Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan). Discontent with the elections results began before they had even been officially announced when several thousand protestors took to Moscow’s streets chanting “down with Putin” on 05 December 2011. This was followed by an announcement on 06 December 2011, that thousands of police and interior ministry troops are being deployed into Moscow in what was undoubtedly a show of force in an attempt to end the disquiet and prevent protests from escalating. Despite the governments attempt to put an end to the unrest, protests have continued and in an unexpected move the announcement came on 08 December 2011, that Moscow had authorised a opposition activists to hold a 30,000 strong rally in Bolotanya Square on 10 December 2011.
Russian President Dimity Medvedev has tried to downplay the protests declaring that there is nothing “supernatural” about the protest rallies that have swept through some Russian cities, arguing that they are simply a “manifestation of democracy”. Unsurprisingly, Putin, who will see the results as a personal attack on one of his key sources of legitimacy, that of his personal popularity, has reacted far less diplomatically to the criticism and is increasingly beginning to throw his toys out of the pram, slamming US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the catalyst behind the growing unrest and warning of adopting a hardline approach to dissent. Declaring in a speech on 08 December 2011, that “we need to safeguard ourselves from this interference in our internal affairs and defend our sovereignty” he added, “we are a major nuclear power and remain such” which “causes some concern for our partners”.
Whilst these protest are of a scale and distribution rarely seen in the era of Putin, there is little doubt that the election results have embarrassed, angered and even surprised Putin. This is ultimately new territory for Putin with some commenting that this could be the beginning of the end. However, it is hard to shake the feeling that realistically they may only represent a set-back for a regime which although it likes to uphold the appearance of an ‘open democracy’ in reality is likely to continue its plans, including the return of Putin to the Kremlin in May 2012 regardless of falling public approval and growing unrest. Although the response to protests has so far been fairly restrained for the Kremlin, it is unlikely that this relatively tempered approach currently being advocated by Medvedev will be tolerated by Putin much longer. Although it is difficult to predict how the next few days and weeks will play out, there is undoubtedly a threat that in the long term this unrest could see an already authoritarian system which has in part attempted to up hold a faux democratic and legal system, revert to a more conventional repressive and openly isolationist authoritarian system which clearly has significant consequences for both the Russian and international community.
